


Haircut

by drneroisgod



Series: You're All The Things I've Got to Remember [7]
Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: Gen, and i had this idea, and i was like, and so I did, i have to write this immediately, i was in the bathroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27538435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: Raven returns from a mission messy and in need of a haircut.
Relationships: Natalya | Raven & Maximilian Nero
Series: You're All The Things I've Got to Remember [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478930
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Haircut

Nero is wrapped in a bathrobe and blanket in a hotel room, basking in the gentle attentions of a gas fire and reading a copy of _The Portrait of a Lady_ his mother annotated. Raven is breathing clouds of ice in the dark, red mud staining her black pants and pushing snowlogged hair out of her eyes. 

He makes cocoa. She skids through stop signs.

He looks at the clock. He has laid out his suit for tomorrow. His razor and shaving cream stand guard on the bathroom counter, ready for an early morning operation, oh-five-hundred hours. She slings her swords into her duffel bag and stomps her feet on the pavement to clean her shoes, but she still hits the lobby like a sandstorm.

“Madame, can I help you?” the concierge asks urgently.

She troops into a gleaming elevator. “Room 534.” 

He pours a second cup of cocoa and opens the door before she can knock. 

“Hey,” she says, gratefully accepting the warm drink in exchange for her sand-encrusted duffel.

“Did you bring half of Australia with you?” Nero asks, holding the bag at arm’s length. 

Raven shakes her bangs out of her eyes. “There was some weather.”

Nero looks her up and down: she is plastered with both the outback and the city, in her clothes, on her skin, in her hair.

He looks her directly in her eyes, his voice deadly serious. “Shower.”

Raven tosses her head but dutifully marches into her bathroom and strips down. Nero gingerly sets Raven’s duffel in the trash receptacle until he can think of somewhere else to collect the dirt. 

Under cold water, Raven scrubs international adventure from her body until she resembles something like a girl again. She joins Nero fifteen minutes later as a canker wrapped in white fleece; he offers her a sandwich.

“You need a haircut,” he tells her.

Raven chews her food slowly, waiting to swallow. “A haircut.”

“My meeting tomorrow is important, Natalya.”

Her jaw is very still. “I know.”

They stare at each other, a silent chess match passing between their marble sternocleidomastoids and their raised eyebrows. This is a game they’ve played before. She is tired and unprepared for a fight. He moves for the kill as she takes her last bite.

“Come with me.”

“I can do it myself,” she argues wearily, but he’s already spread a towel on his bathroom floor and taken the clippers in his hand. He puts a towel around her shoulders. She kneels: she is familiar with haircuts. For a moment, she is caught in a cement prison where a man she blinded hacks at her long hair with a pair of dull scissors. Like then, she tenses, ready to move quickly. 

The clippers buzz. Raven looks down. Hunks of dark hair fall like feathers onto the towel. She picks up a clump and rolls it between her fingers. It falls to pieces in her hand.

His touch is light. “Tilt your head this way,” he instructs.

She tries to breathe evenly, for his sake, and waits. Minutes pass. He sets the clippers back on the counter and moves to face her.

“Okay, look up.” 

She does, expecting to meet his bold gaze, but he looks past her eyes, swaying slightly. She realizes he is evaluating his handiwork. He takes the clippers once more and makes a few adjustments. He musses the top of her head slightly and sets them down for good.

“I think it’s even,” he says. “Take a look in the mirror.”

Raven pushes herself up, somehow shy. Her reflection is wide-eyed. _Oh_ , she thinks. _Oh!_

“Too short?” Nero asks worriedly. He has cropped the sides close, but left the top a little longer. It is the first time she can recall seeing herself with symmetry. Raven runs a hand through her damp locks, pushing them to one side, then the other. She cannot look away. She is not sure how he knew to do this: this is something she did not know she wanted. He has made her look like herself. She has no idea how to tell him this.

“This is good,” she says with the firmness of a dream. “I—” She bites the inside of her cheek so she will not cry. He squeezes her shoulders gently.

“There, there.” He understands there is an untold story. “I told you it wouldn’t be so bad.”

When she has recovered, she returns to her own room. They each ready themselves for bedtime. He brushes his teeth, combs his hair, and replaces his bookmark. Oh-five-hundred hours. Meanwhile, she stares in the mirror and tries to hold in her laughter.


End file.
